The Notebook

The book “The Notebook” by Nicholas Sparks, is a really good book. It starts out with an old man reading an old woman with Alzheimer’s a love story, that is all about Noah Calhoun and Allie Nelson, who dated while they were young. They were then forced to separate, and since they really cared about each other, it was very hard for both of them. They went their separate ways, but about 15 years later, they’re still thinking of each other. Noah has remained single and is living alone in the small town where they spent their summer together, while Allie is engaged and living far away. When she reads about Noah in a newspaper article, she is inspired and takes off to go talk to him. They haven’t had any contact since she left with her family, so she has no clue what to expect. When she arrives, she first kind of hesitates to go see him, because she doesn’t exactly know how she feels, but she finally musters up the courage, and goes to his house (which was featured in the newspaper article, because he rebuilt it all himself). When she arrives he is ecstatic, because he has been waiting for her pretty much all of his life to see her again, and has really missed her. They start talking and kind of catch up on what’s happened in their life in the past couple years, and while Noah is disappointed that Allie is engaged, he tells her that he at least wants to be friends. They then meet the next day, when Noah takes Allie out to a secret kind of lagoon where all of these swans are staying during their migration. While they were out on the water, it began to thunderstorm, forcing them back inside. That night while they’re talking, they both kind of realize how much they still love each other, and kind of renew their love. Allie then stays with Noah for the next couple days (while they’re almost secretly dating again), until the unexpected happens, and Allie’s mother shows up at Noah’s house, looking for Allie. She realizes that Noah and Allie are back together, and tells Allie that she needs to pick between Noah and her fiancé, Lon, or else they’d all end up getting hurt. She then also reveals a secret, that she had been keeping all of the letters that Noah had been sending Allie (after they had left), and had never told her about them or showed her. It shocks both Noah and Allie, but then they knew why the other one had never responded to their letters, and it all started to make sense. Even though they’re happy, Allie knows that she has to go back to Lon to either tell him that she’s back together with Noah, or to go back with him forever, and leave Noah. That’s where the old man ends reading the book to the old lady, and she starts to ask questions about what happens in the “missing” ending. That’s as far as I’m going to summarize, since I don’t want to blow the ending for anyone who hasn’t read the book, but I can truthfully say that the ending is really good.
I really liked this book, because even though it was fairly predictable, it still threw in things that you weren’t expecting. It was good because you really felt connected to the characters, no matter what they did, and by the end you really wanted to see them end up together. At the beginning of the book, you really didn’t see what was coming, so it was nice to be kind of surprised. Like I kind of said before, one of my favorite things about the book was the characters, because they were the kind of characters that you’d want to read about. Some books are good, but you can’t really relate to the characters, but in this book I could totally relate to almost all of the characters in it. Noah was a person who liked to read, and was very easy going and nice. Allie was a very intelligent person, who had a hard time choosing between following her brain and her heart, and even though they may not sound like a perfect match, they were very cute together. The only thing I didn’t really like about the book was that it was kind of confusing in the beginning, but then luckily it ended up making sense. After I finished, I realized why the author kind of tied the two stories together, and why then it really made sense.
The setting in this book seemed like a really nice place, even though it was a small little town. The book took place in New Bern, South Carolina, which really seemed like a nice little town. Everybody knew everybody, and there really were little to no problems. This was the kind of town where everyone else looked out for one another, which was shown when Noah was best friends with his old neighbor, who would come over to keep him company. It shows that everyone really cared about one another, and would do anything for their neighbors. The one bad thing about that type of town is that everyone knows everyone else’s business, but luckily that type of thing really didn’t happen in this story. The overall mood of this story was very kind of lovey, because it’s all about kind of picking between your soul mate and what’s right, and all about Noah and Allie’s journey together. Overall, I really liked this book, and would recommend it to anyone who likes kind of sad love stories.

By: Ali, Hour 6